Month: May 2017

As Ethiopian Seeks to Head WHO, Outbreak at Home Raises Questions

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Ethiopia is battling an outbreak of acute watery diarrhea (AWD) that has affected more than 32,000 people.  At the same time, Ethiopia’s former minister of health, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, is a candidate to lead the World Health Organization.

 

The two facts are linked in that critics of Tedros say he has tried to minimize the outbreak by refusing to classify it as cholera, a label that could harm Ethiopia’s economic growth.

The WHO’s 194 member states will gather in Geneva for a 10-day assembly starting Monday. One of their first tasks is to choose the organization’s next director-general.

Tedros is one of three top contenders for the position, along with candidates from Britain and Pakistan.

Lawrence Gostin, director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, told The New York Times that Ethiopia has a long history of downplaying cholera outbreaks, and the WHO could “lose its legitimacy” if Tedros, who is also a former Ethiopian minister of foreign affairs, takes over the leadership of the organization.

“Dr. Tedros is a compassionate and highly competent public health official,” he told the Times. “But he had a duty to speak truth to power and to honestly identify and report verified cholera outbreaks over an extended period.”

But others have risen to Tedros’ defense. Tom Frieden, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the controversy over naming the outbreak is overblown. “During the time that Tedros was health minister, it would have not made any difference,” Frieden told VOA.

Cholera vs. acute watery diarrhea

Ethiopia has been accused of covering up three cholera outbreaks during Tedros’ tenure as health minister.

Declaring cholera would not have changed Ethiopia’s response to past AWD outbreaks, according to Frieden.  In fact, he says, avoiding the cholera label has not been irresponsible but rather a necessary compromise.

“It allowed public health to respond rapidly,” Frieden said.

The literature on AWD and cholera shows that treatment is the same. It calls for hydrating the patient, chlorinating water and improving sanitation. In fact, the WHO uses the terms interchangeably in their teaching materials on how to deal with an outbreak.

Lately, the development of cholera vaccines has brought the value of identifying the bacterial disease to the fore, said Frieden. “At this time, all African countries that report acute watery diarrhea should be rapidly doing lab confirmation and, if it’s cholera, considering the use of cholera vaccine in the response,” he said.

 

In the current outbreak, Ethiopia’s Somali region has been hit the hardest, with 768 deaths since January, according to a WHO report published May 12.  Almost 99 percent of the deaths and 91 percent of cases are in the same region.

The WHO representative to Ethiopia, Dr. Akpaka Kalu, says the government is right to call it AWD because regional health centers do not have the capacity to test every case.

If all cases are treated as cholera, the disease has the potential to spread more quickly when children who do not have it are brought into cholera treatment centers, Kalu said.

“We know, biologically, malnutrition causes diarrhea. Now, if you admit that child into a cholera treatment center, you’ve actually turned that center into a cholera transmission center,” he said, speaking by phone from Addis Ababa.

Current response

Over the past six weeks, the response to AWD in Ethiopia appears to have been effective.

Kalu said his team, along with regional leadership and government officials, have focused on prevention and intervention. They have instituted community-based surveillance to monitor the regional drought in general and AWD in particular, and there has been a drop in reported cases.

“We have evidence the average number of cases [dropped] from over 600 a day to about 54 a day,” he said.

Kalu argues that early interventions are getting results and doesn’t think that vaccinating 6 million people in the Somali region is feasible.

He says Ethiopia is now preparing to prevent outbreaks from spreading to other parts of the country such as the Afar and Amhara regions as the rainy season approaches.

“We need to enhance preparedness because, as the rains come, usually what happens is the rains wash and enter the water bodies including where there is open defecation,” he said. “That’s how water bodies get contaminated and people use the water and become sick. So there is a need, our focus is to build capacity to be able to detect and contain so that it doesn’t spread.”
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Trial Begins for Alleged Turkey Coup Instigators

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More than 220 people, including at least 26 former generals, have gone on trial in Turkey, accused of instigating last July’s failed military coup.

Among those on trial is General Akin Ozturk, a former air force commander.

Turkey accuses U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen of fomenting the July 15, 2016, uprising that left more than 260 people dead.  Gulen has denied involvement.

On Sunday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan formally extended the state of emergency declared after a failed coup, saying the decree will remain in place until the country finds “welfare and peace.”

Erdogan spoke Sunday in Ankara to tens of thousands of his followers and members of his ruling (AK) Justice and Development Party, which convened to reelect Erdogan, its co-founder, to its leadership post.

The state of emergency permits Erdogan and his Cabinet to issue decrees without parliamentary approval or judicial review.  

Under emergency rule, more than 47,000 people have been arrested and 100,000 others dismissed from public service for alleged connections to Gulen.

Erdogan’s announcement and his return as party chief came four weeks after Turkish voters narrowly approved a national referendum greatly expanding presidential powers.

The April 18 vote created a powerful executive presidency that largely sidelines Turkish lawmakers and the office of prime minister.  Under the constitutional amendments, Erdogan will also set the national budget and appoint judges to the high court and the constitutional court.

Critics, including prominent human rights organizations, have argued the reforms are tantamount to creating an elected dictatorship.  Erdogan and his supporters claim they will create a less cumbersome system of government better able to confront terrorism and a sluggish economy.
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More Than 31 Million Internally Displaced in 2016

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More than 30 million people were displaced within their own countries last year, says a new report.

 

The Internal Displacement Monitoring Center and the Norwegian Refugee Council cite conflict, criminal violence and natural disasters as the driving force behind the uprooting of tens of millions.

 

“When a family is pushed out of their home, sometimes for years, it is a sign something is wrong in a nation, the locality, but also in international relations,” Norwegian Refugee Council Director-General Jan Egeland told reporters at the launch of the report Monday.

 

Nearly seven million people were newly displaced last year alone.

 

The Democratic Republic of Congo topped the list of conflict-driven dislocation, with more than 922,000 new IDPs in 2016, exceeding Syria and Iraq, which came second and third, respectively.

 

Egeland said North and South Kivu and Kasai province were responsible for much of the displacements.  He said despite a massive international presence in eastern Congo, the United Nations has its largest peacekeeping mission there with 22,000 troops and police, funding for humanitarian appeals has dwindled and the Congo’s problems have fallen off the top of the international agenda.

The other countries topping the list were Syria (824,000 displaced), Iraq (659,000), Afghanistan (653,000), Nigeria (501,000) and Yemen (478,000).

 

“In 2016, one person every second was forced to flee their home inside their own country,” Egeland said.  “Internally displaced people now outnumber refugees by two to one,” he added.

 

“We need to acknowledge that without the right kind of support and protection, a person internally displaced today may become a refugee, an asylum seeker or an international migrant tomorrow,” said Alexandra Bilak, IDMC director.

 

Criminal violence is fueling displacement in places like Central America, where drug violence caused more than 200,000 new movements in 2016 in El Salvador.

 

Storms, floods, drought, wildfires and other natural disasters are also forcing people from their homes.  The numbers are on the rise, with three times as many people displaced due to these factors in 2016 than in 2015.  Researchers fear these figures will grow as countries cope with climate change and more extreme weather events.

 

Bilak said the international political response and funding is not in line with the needs and must be dramatically scaled up.
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Many Muslims Hopeful, Some Wary About Trump’s Saudi Speech

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Many Muslims around the world reacted positively to U.S. President Donald Trump’s speech Sunday to dozens of Arab and Muslim leaders at the Arab Islamic American Summit in the Saudi capital Riyadh. There, Trump called for Muslim unity in the fight against terrorism.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump had called for a “total and complete shutdown” of Muslims entering the U.S.  But Sunday he outlined his vision for U.S.-Muslim relations and the need for Muslim countries to jointly combat terrorism, saying the fight against terrorism was “a battle between good and evil.”

“President Trump gave an effective speech focusing on one of the major challenges facing the Middle East and the world: terrorism and extremism,” said Zalmay Khalilzad, former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq, and the United Nations. “His call on Muslim leaders at the summit to do more to take on extremists and terrorists was important.”

The former top Muslim U.S. diplomat praised Trump’s offer to “build partnerships with Muslim majority countries to promote peace and prosperity.”

“Bravo President Trump,” tweeted Anwar Gargash, UAE’s state minister for foreign affairs. “Effective and historic speech defining approach towards extremism and terrorism with candid respect and friendship.”

Muslim leaders and analysts said the U.S.-Saudi initiative would help counter the expanding waves of extremism in the region.

 

“A Muslim nations -U.S. cooperation would help counter extremism and extremist groups, Siraj Wahab, deputy managing editor of the Arab News daily in Jeddah, told VOA’s Urdu service.  

 

Buffalo University professor Faizan Haq echoed Wahab’s comments and said “President Trump talks straight and this trip on the whole will enhance the cooperation between Muslim countries and United States.”

 

Afghan Ambassador to Washington Hamdullah Mohib said the historic battle between good and evil cannot be won unless the world is united and acts as one.

 

‘Global threat’

“Terrorism is a global threat that demands a global solution, and the Afghan people and security forces have been thrust into the forefront of the fight,” Mohib told VOA’s Afghan service. “As President Trump said, ‘every country in the region has an absolute duty to ensure that terrorists find no sanctuary on their soil,’ and I would add that every country in the region also has a duty to cut off all financing and sponsorship for these groups.”

 

In his speech, Trump accused Iran of destabilizing the Middle East region. “From Lebanon to Iraq to Yemen, Iran funds, arms, and trains terrorists, militias and other extremist groups that spread destruction and chaos across the region.”

Pakistani politician Shireen Mazari tweeted that it seemed that the U.S. and Saudi Arabia have teamed up against Iran.

“After KSA King’s speech & Trump’s speech there can be no doubt that the KSA-led alliance is focused against Iran!”

Khalilzad said Trump should have also mentioned other factors that have contributed to the emergence of extremism in the region.

“Besides highlighting the negative role played by Iran’s policies in producing extremism and terror and calling for an end to providing sanctuaries, it would have been good if the president had also focused on additional factors, especially the challenge of governance that contribute to the rise and persistence of the challenge, and reforms and changes needed to address them.”

 

Reacting to Trump’s speech in a tweet, Iran’s Foreign Minister, Javad Zarif, suggested that the speech was rather a business deal between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia.

“Iran – fresh from real elections – attacked by @POTUS [President Trump] in that bastion of democracy & moderation. Foreign Policy or simply milking KSA of $480B?”

Speaking with VOA’s Afghan service prior to Trump’s speech, Afghan Ambassador to Qatar, where the Afghan Taliban has a political office, said that while the Arab governments are concerned about the Islamic State group (IS) and Taliban, some wealthy Arab individuals are supporting them. “It all depends on what President Trump says to them today, to gain their full cooperation in the fight against ISIS,” Faizullah Kakar, the Afghan Ambassador said.

In Indonesia, which has the largest Muslim population in the world, Foreign Ministry spokesman Armanatha Nasir said Saturday the Riyadh meeting was important because “it is the first time a meeting between the new American government and Islamic countries [are] addressing issues that are of concern to us all, especially regarding the fight against radicalism and terrorism.” Indonesia has recently been hit by a wave of terror attacks. As many as 384 Indonesians have joined the Islamic State group, according to Indonesia’s counterterrorism agency.

“Indonesia will convey our experience and the steps we have taken in the fight against terrorism and radicalism. How we use soft power and hard power approach in combating radicalism and terrorism.”

Robertus Robet, an Indonesian analyst, believes the speech indicates the U.S. no longer wants to be at the forefront of the war on terrorism.

“America will play a supportive role and the countries in the Middle East are front-line in the so-called ‘good and evil, war,” Robet told VOA. “Whether later will be realized in the form of a policy where American troops are no longer in the front lines, and diplomacy plays a bigger role in the future, we will have to see.”

Possibility of ‘reset’

Some Muslim analysts said the speech would help Trump hit a reset with the Muslim world.  

 

“The soft tone and positive narrative in Trump’s speech would help eliminate the reservations of Muslims about his narrative during the election campaign,” journalist Wahab said.

 

As a candidate, Trump proposed temporarily banning Muslims from entering the United States which led to a strong condemnation by Muslims in the U.S. and around the world. Analysts say that Sunday’s speech will present a softer image of Trump in the Muslim world. As president, he ordered temporary bans on people from certain Muslim-majority countries, which have been blocked by courts that ruled they were discriminatory.

 

In Turkey, the opinion remained divided.

 

“Some of them [Turks] think that Trump picked Saudi Arabia for his first foreign visit to make up for his anti-Muslim stance in the campaign period and also his executive orders to limit travels of some Muslim countries’ citizens,” Ilter Turan, a political science professor at the Istanbul Bilgi University, told VOA’s Turkish service. “Others think that Trump still doesn’t like Muslims but pretend that he likes because of trade agreements and interests.”

 

Some analysts, however, are skeptical if Trump would be able to effectively execute his vision as he faces many domestic challenges.

 

“The question is, can president Trump fulfill the promises he made during his visit and the speech?” asked Bilal Wehab, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “The answer depends on how Trump will solve his internal problems in Washington, D.C.”

 

But Dhaka-based Bangladeshi journalist, Mizanur Rahman Khan, believes that Trump’s speech was indicative of “a new angle about how America looks forward to the Muslim World and certainly a departure from earlier perceptions.”

 

VOA’s Afghan, Bangla, Deewa, Indonesian, Kurdish, Turkish and Urdu Services contributed to this report.
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Trump Making First Official Visit to Israel

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U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday makes his first official visit to Israel, where he is determined to broker a long elusive peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

Trump’s schedule includes talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a wreath-laying ceremony at the Yad Vashem Holocaust remembrance center.

He also will meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and become the first sitting U.S. president to visit the Western Wall – Judaism’s holiest site.

Trump, who prides himself as a first-rate dealmaker, has called peace between Israel and the Palestinians the “ultimate deal.” But since becoming president, he has given few hints on how he intends to pursue that goal.

Trump said during the presidential campaign that the best way to negotiate an agreement is taking what he called an “objective” approach to the serious and extremely emotional issues keeping both sides far apart. But he has said continued Israeli settlements do not help the peace process.

He also is backing away from his promise to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Despite what some Israelis may perceive as discouraging rhetoric from Trump, the new U.S. ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, tells the Israel Hayom newspaper that it is time for “the parties to meet with each other without preconditions and to begin a discussion that would hopefully lead to peace.”

There have been no full-fledged peace talks since 2014.

Tensions have festered over Israeli settlement expansion and Palestinian violence sparked by rumors Israel was planning to completely take over an east Jerusalem holy site, sacred to both Jews and Muslims.

Israel Sunday marked the 50th anniversary of its occupation of east Jerusalem, captured during the Six-Day War.

Prime Minister Netanyahu said Israel did not occupy Jerusalem, but instead “liberated” it. He said Jerusalem always was and always will be the Israeli capital. He urged Israeli allies to move their embassies there.

The Palestinians want east Jerusalem as the capital of a future state. The international community has said the status of Jerusalem must be settled in peace negotiations.
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In Israel, Trump to Pursue ‘Ultimate Deal’

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President Donald Trump has cast the elusive pursuit of peace between Israelis and Palestinians as the “ultimate deal.” But he will step foot in Israel having offered few indications of how he plans to achieve what so many of his predecessors could not.

 

Trump has handed son-in-law Jared Kushner and longtime business lawyer Jason Greenblatt the assignment of charting the course toward a peace process. The White House-driven effort is a sharp shift from the practice of previous U.S. administrations that typically gave secretaries of state those responsibilities.

 

Kushner and Greenblatt were to accompany Trump on his two-day visit, set to begin Monday and include separate meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Trump also planned to visit the Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem and the Western Wall, an important Jewish holy site.

 

On the eve of Trump’s visit, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Security Cabinet approved several confidence-building measures, including construction permits for Palestinians near their cities in parts of the West Bank that had previously been off limits, a senior official said. Under interim agreements, 60 percent of the West Bank, known as Area C, site of Israel’s settlements, is under Israeli control and Palestinian development there has mostly been forbidden by Israel.

Speaking on condition of anonymity in line with protocol, he said the package also includes economic concessions and opening the border crossing between the West Bank and Jordan.

White House aides have played down expectations for significant progress on the peace process during Trump’s stop, casting it as more symbolic than substantive. Yet Trump may still need to engage in some delicate diplomacy following revelations that he disclosed highly classified intelligence Israel obtained about the Islamic State group with top Russian officials, without Israel’s permission.

 

Israel also has expressed concern about the $110 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia that Trump announced Saturday in Riyadh. Yuval Steinitz, a senior Cabinet minister and Netanyahu confidant, called Saudi Arabia “a hostile country” and said the deal was “definitely something that should trouble us.”

 

Trump’s first overseas trip as president comes as the dynamics between the United States and the region’s players are moving in unexpected directions.

While Israeli officials cheered Trump’s election, some are now wary of the tougher line he has taken on settlements: urging restraint but not calling for a full halt to construction. Trump has retreated from a campaign pledge to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, bending to the same diplomatic and security concerns as other presidents who have made similar promises.

Seeking ‘real deal’

Palestinians, who viewed Trump’s victory with some trepidation, are said to have been pleasantly surprised by Trump’s openness during a recent meeting with Abbas in Washington.

A senior official who was part of the Palestinian delegation said Trump is planning to try to relaunch peace talks, with a goal of reaching an agreement within a year. The Trump administration rejected a request from the Palestinians to push for an Israeli settlement freeze, but promised to sort out the issue during peace negotiations, according to the official, who was not authorized to publicly discuss the private meeting and spoke on condition of anonymity.

 

Jibril Rajoub, a senior Palestinian official close to Abbas, said Trump was a “serious president” who “seeks to have a real deal, not just managing the conflict.”

 

David Friedman, the new U.S. ambassador to Israel, told the newspaper Israel Hayom that Trump’s goal at the start is simply “to begin a discussion that would hopefully lead to peace.”

 

Friedman attended a celebration Sunday with Netanyahu of Israel’s capture of east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, days after the White House declined to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the area.

 

The area is home to sensitive religious sites, including the Western Wall, the holiest place where Jews can pray. Israeli officials are on edge over the U.S refusal to say the Western Wall is part of Israel.

​Israel considers the entire city to be its capital. The international community says the fate of east Jerusalem, claimed by the Palestinians, must be resolved through negotiations.

 

The last round of peace talks, led by then-President Barack Obama and his secretary of state, John Kerry, fell apart in 2014.

Greenblatt has quietly done much of the heavy work for the U.S. thus far. The low-profile Greenblatt, who spent about two decades as a lawyer at the Trump Organization before joining the White House, has traveled to the region twice since the inauguration and is in weekly contact with pivotal players from both sides.

 

Aaron David Miller, a Middle East peace adviser to Democratic and Republican secretaries of state, said that despite Greenblatt’s positive reviews in the region, there are limits over how much influence he, or any American officials, can have over the process.

 

“The issue over many years has not been the mediator in the middle – it’s the guys sitting on the other sides of the mediators,” said Miller, now a vice president at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

 

Israeli officials say they are largely in the dark about what ideas Trump might present for peace or what concessions he may demand. Hard-liners who dominate Netanyahu’s government grew particularly concerned when White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster voiced support last week for Palestinian “self-determination.”

Naftali Bennett, leader of the nationalist Jewish Home Party, lamented “a kind of change in the spirit” of Trump’s positions since he was elected in November. He urged Netanyahu to reject Palestinian statehood and insist that Jerusalem remain under Israeli sovereignty forever.

 

While Netanyahu in the past has expressed support for the establishment of a Palestinian state, he has been vague about this goal since Trump took office.

 

Trump’s trip began in Saudi Arabia and takes him, after Israel, to the Vatican for an audience with Pope Francis, to Brussels for a NATO summit and to Sicily for a meeting of leaders of the Group of Seven major industrial nations.
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At Refugee Camp, Trump Envoy Haley Vows More Aid for Syrians

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His skull and jaw wrapped in bandages, the young Syrian refugee stared nonchalantly into a small black box at a supermarket in this sprawling, dust-swept refugee camp. The box scanned his iris to identify him, charged his account and sent him on his way.

 

If the boy noticed U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley watching intently from just a few feet away, he didn’t show it. But Haley would later tout the iris-scanners as a fraud-cutting tool boosting efficiency for the more than $6.5 billion the U.S. has spent helping those whose lives have been upended by Syria’s harrowing civil war.

 

Yet as Haley pledged Sunday that the U.S. would increase support, her message was diluted by Trump’s own vow to put “America First,” his planned budget cuts and hardline position on admitting refugees.

 

“We’re the No. 1 donor here through this crisis. That’s not going to stop. We’re not going to stop funding this,” Haley said. “The fact that I’m here shows we want to see what else needs to be done.”

It was a theme the outspoken ambassador returned to over and over in Jordan at the start of her first trip abroad since taking office. In her stops here and in Turkey – another Syria neighbor – Haley is witnessing first-hand the strains placed on countries absorbing the more than 5 million Syrians who have fled the Islamic State group, President Bashar Assad’s government, or both.

 

She climbed into the trailer of an 18-wheeler staged at the Ramtha border crossing less than a kilometer (0.6 miles) from Syria, inspecting boxes of peas, tuna and canned meat stacked shoulder-high. The truck was to join 19 others in a convoy into opposition-held territory in Syria, carrying supplies from U.N. agencies and other groups, many U.S.-funded.

 

“This is all in the name of our Syrian brothers and sisters,” Haley told aid workers in a nearby tent, swatting away flies in the summer heat. “We want you to feel like the U.S. is behind you.”

Different rhetoric

The U.S. president’s message to Syrians couldn’t be more different.

Trump, who was in Saudi Arabia on his first overseas trip, once called his predecessor “insane” for letting in Syrian refugees. As president, he tried to bar them from the U.S., describing them as a national security threat. A court blocked that move, but the number of Syrian refugees admitted has nonetheless dropped, from 5,422 in the four months before Trump’s inauguration to 1,566 in the four months since, U.S. statistics show.

 

And Trump has called for drastic cuts to U.S. funding for the United Nations and its affiliated agencies – such as those aiding people still in Syria and those who’ve fled. Trump plans to release his budget blueprint Tuesday, but his initial proposal in March called for a one-third cut to diplomatic and overseas programming while boosting the U.S. military by $54 billion.

 

Haley told reporters accompanying her to Jordan that the U.S. was “not pulling back” and was in fact “engaging more.” She cited Trump’s stepped-up action to try to hasten a political solution to the war, including a strike punishing Assad’s forces for using chemical weapons that the Syrian opposition and its backers have enthusiastically applauded.

 

She echoed Trump’s defense of his plan to temporarily halt refugee admissions from all countries – which was also blocked in court – by saying the U.S. needed to protect Americans by first improving its refugee-vetting capabilities. And she pointed to a group of women in the camp who’d overwhelmingly told her their hope was to return to Syria, not relocate to the U.S.

“So our goal is how do we get these people back home to a safe place?” Haley said.

 

Still, the situation in Zaatari Refugee Camp – like in others in Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon and Iraq – tell the story of Syrians who see no quick resolution to their plight.

 

In Zaatari, half of the 80,000 refugees are children, and a dozen babies are born here per day, according to UNICEF, the U.N.’s child welfare agency. Thirty-five percent of marriages involve a child under 18, a reflection of the economic hardships families in the camp face.

Many of the younger children wander unsupervised through the camp, where gusts of dust occasionally reduced visibility to just a few feet as Haley’s motorcade rolled through the streets, passing sparse, white-corrugated buildings accorded a bit of cheer by colorful murals painted on their walls.

 

As ambassador, Haley plays a key but only partial role in the Trump administration’s decision-making on Syria, refugees and humanitarian aid. But her role at the U.N. puts her at the center of the debate about how the global community takes on the crisis. After all, it’s successive U.N. Security Council resolutions that created the legal framework for aid groups to send aid into Syria, with or without Assad’s consent.

 

At the Marka military airport in Amman, Haley went aboard a cargo plane to get a rare look at high-risk operations to airdrop wheat, lentils and cooking oil into Assad-controlled territory in Deir el-Zour, which is completely surrounded by the Islamic State group. In a sign of Moscow’s outsize influence in the Syria conflict, both the aircraft and the company that flies it on behalf of the World Food Program are Russian.

 

“It’s smiles, and tears,” said David Beasley, WFP’s executive director. “It really is.”
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Dozens Walk Out on Pence at Notre Dame Graduation

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More than 100 graduating students at the University of Notre Dame walked out Sunday as Vice President Mike Pence began his address at their commencement ceremony.

Pence was chosen to give the commencement address at the nation’s most prominent Catholic university – even though the school ordinarily invites newly inaugurated presidents to give the address in their first year of office. Thousands of students and faculty members had signed a petition asking Notre Dame’s president, the Rev. John Jenkins, not to invite President Donald Trump.

Pence had been the governor of Indiana, the Midwest state where the university is located.

The planned protest was organized by a student organization WeStaNDFor, which said in a release that it was primarily protesting Pence’s opposition to gay rights, his attempts as governor to prevent Syrian refugees from resettling in Indiana, his support of Trump’s immigration travel ban, and his opposition to sanctuary cities that do not enforce federal immigration laws.

Before Pence spoke, valedictorian Caleb Joshua Pine urged a “stand against the scapegoating of Muslims” and criticized Trump’s push to build a wall along the Mexican border.

The Notre Dame protest comes after Bethune-Cookman University students booed, chanted and turned their backs on Education Secretary Betsy DeVos during her commencement address at their ceremony earlier this month. At times the booing was so loud, the Florida school’s president admonished the students, “If this behavior continues, your degrees will be mailed to you. Choose which way you want to go.”

Like Pence’s selection at Notre Dame, students at the historically black college criticized its administration’s pick of DeVos ahead of the ceremony.
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Turkey’s Erdogan Extends Emergency Rule

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has formally extended the state of emergency declared after a failed 2016 military coup, saying the decree will remain in place until the country finds “welfare and peace.”

Erdogan spoke Sunday in Ankara to tens of thousands of his followers and members of his ruling (AK) Justice and Development Party, which convened to re-elect their party co-founder to the post.

The state of emergency permits Erdogan and his Cabinet to issue decrees without parliamentary approval or judicial review.  

Erdogan’s announcement and his return as party chief came four weeks after Turkish voters narrowly approved a national referendum greatly expanding presidential powers.

The April 18 vote created a powerful executive presidency that largely sidelines Turkish lawmakers and the office of prime minister.  Under the constitutional amendments, Erdogan will also set the national budget and appoint judges to the high court and the constitutional court.

Critics, including prominent human rights organizations, have argued the reforms are tantamount to creating an elected dictatorship.  Erdogan and his supporters claim they will create a less cumbersome system of government better able to confront terrorism and a sluggish economy.

Tens of thousands jailed in crackdown

Under emergency rule, more than 47,000 people have been arrested and 100,000 others dismissed from public service for alleged connections to U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen.

Erdogan has accused the cleric of fomenting the July 15, 2016, uprising that left more than 260 people dead.  Gulen has denied involvement.

Erdogan’s address comes just days after his visit to the White House, where he sought to persuade U.S. President Donald Trump to scrap a U.S.-led military alliance with Syrian Kurdish fighters battling Islamic State extremists in northern Syria.

Erdogan’s efforts appeared unsuccessful.  The Turkish leader also drew sharp U.S. public criticism when, hours after the White House visit, he was shown outside the Turkish embassy in Washington standing by as his bodyguards assaulted protesters opposed to his rule.
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Tillerson: US Expressed ‘Dismay’ Over Violence at Turkish Embassy

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Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says the U.S. has expressed its “dismay” to Turkish officials about last week’s clash in which Turkish security personnel apparently attacked demonstrators in Washington.

Tillerson told Fox News Sunday that Turkey’s ambassador to the U.S. has been told that last Tuesday’s violence was “simply unacceptable.”

“There is an ongoing investigation,” he said, adding that he will wait on the outcome of that probe before deciding on a more formal response.

The clash broke out between Turkish security personnel and protesters outside the Turkish ambassador’s residence during Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit to Washington.

Protesters say they were attacked by Turkish security forces as they demonstrated peacefully. Turkey blamed the clash on the demonstrators, claiming they aggressively provoked people who had gathered to see Erdogan.

VOA’s Turkish service recorded images at the scene that indicated the Turkish security detail suddenly turned on the demonstrators, knocking them to the ground and kicking them until American police pushed the Turks away. The video showed Erdogan standing beside his limousine, watching the brawl.

U.S. officials briefly detained two members of Erdogan’s security detail, but they were soon released, under customary diplomatic protocols granting immunity to aides accompanying a visiting dignitary.

Some U.S. lawmakers have demanded the United States take stronger action, including Republican Senator John McCain, who called for the Turkish ambassador to be expelled.

 
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Local Radio: Tunisia Protesters Close Second Oil Pump Station

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Tunisian protesters demanding jobs have closed down a second oil pumping station in the south in defiance of government attempts to protect oil and gasfields with troops and negotiate an end to unrest, two local radios reported on Sunday.

Protesters peacefully shut a pumping station at Faouar in southern Kebili province, where French oil company Perenco operates, according to one local witness and Mosaique FM and Shems FM radio stations.

“We shut down the pumping station for Perenco, where we are carrying out our sit-in protest. We had no problem with the army. We are just demanding jobs,” said Faker Ajmi, one of the protesters told Reuters by telephone.

The energy ministry did not reply to a request for comment.

A spokesman for Perenco also did not immediately reply to an email asking about the status of their operations. Officials said earlier this month Perenco’s production halted at Baguel and Tarfa fields, which are for gas and condensate output.
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Germany’s Social Democrats Target Merkel in Turkey Airbase Row

Posted on by SeeEU

Germany’s Social Democrats raised pressure on conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday, saying if she could not resolve a row with Turkey over access to the Incirlik air base, German troops should move.

Merkel’s defense minister, tacitly admitting the possibility said she had been looking for other locations and hinted that Jordan could be one.

Turkey, which has refused permission for German lawmakers to visit their troops at Incirlik, has said Berlin is free to move its soldiers from the base. That would, however, be a significant snub to a NATO ally.

Already strained bilateral ties have deteriorated further over Incirlik where roughly 250 German soldiers are stationed as part of the coalition against Islamic State militants.

“If Mrs Merkel doesn’t succeed at the NATO summit on Thursday to get Turkey to change course, we need alternative bases,” Thomas Oppermann, head of the SPD parliamentary group told Bild am Sonntag.

The SPD, or Social Democrats, trail Merkel’s conservatives in polls four months before the national election. It is desperate to score points with voters on issues other than social justice, its main focus in the last couple of months which has so far failed to resonate.

Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen is looking at alternatives, including Jordan and Cyprus, and said on Saturday she had been impressed with a possible base in Jordan but stressed the government had not yet made a decision.

Merkel is vulnerable on relations with Turkey as critics accuse her of cosying up to President Tayyip Erdogan, who last month won sweeping new powers in a referendum, as she needs his help to control the flow of migrants to western Europe.

The SPD, junior partner in Merkel’s right-left coalition, also tried at the weekend to raise its profile on European issues.

Leader Martin Schulz, a former president of the European Parliament, has tried to ally himself with new pro-EU French President Emmanuel Macron and on Saturday said he would model his campaign on the Frenchman’s.

On Sunday he told a rally in Bavaria it was time for a “new German-French initiative for a socially fair Europe of growth.”

A week after a disastrous election defeat in Germany’s most populous state, an Emnid poll showed the gap widening between Merkel’s conservatives, up 1 percentage point at 38 percent, and the SPD, down 1 point at 26 percent.
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McMaster: Trump’s FBI Comments to Russians Were Aimed at Cooperation

Posted on by SeeEU

U.S. President Donald Trump raised the firing of his FBI director in a meeting with Russia’s foreign minister to explain why he had been unable to find areas of cooperation with Moscow, the White House national security adviser said on Sunday.

“The gist of the conversation was that the president feels as if he is hamstrung in his ability to work with Russia to find areas of cooperation because this has been obviously so much in the news,” H.R. McMaster said in an interview on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.”

Reports that Trump boasted to Russian officials of firing former FBI director James Comey to relieve “great pressure” from a law-enforcement probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election engulfed his administration in turmoil just as Trump left for his first foreign trip as president on Friday.

“I just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job,” Trump said during a May 10 meeting with Russian officials, according to a report by The New York Times that cited a document summarizing the meeting and an unnamed U.S. official.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov denied that Comey had come up during the meeting, according to Interfax news agency.

McMaster also said in Sunday’s interview that the central purpose of Trump’s conversation with Lavrov and Russia’s ambassador to Washington was to confront Russia on areas where the United States considers them disruptive, such as Syria.

McMaster criticized sources who told reporters that Trump had disclosed highly classified information to the Russian officials in the meeting about a planned Islamic State operation.

“In a concern about divulging intelligence they leaked actually not just the information from the meeting, but also indicated the sources and methods to a to a newspaper. I mean it doesn’t make sense,” McMaster said.”
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EU’s Moscovici Confident Eurogroup Will Reach Deal on Greece

Posted on by SeeEU

The European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Pierre Moscovici, said on Sunday he was confident an agreement between Athens and its creditors could be found at a meeting of euro zone finance ministers on Monday in Brussels.

Athens needs funds to repay 7.5 billion euros ($8.4 billion) of debt maturing in July.

“We are very close to an overall agreement,” Moscovici told France Inter radio.

“Greece has assumed its responsibilities,” he said, referring to measures on pension cuts, tax hikes and reforms adopted on Thursday by the Greek Parliament.

“I now wish that we, the partners of Greece, also take our responsibilities,” he said.

Moscovici said his optimism over a deal was partly linked to the fact Germany was now aware of the need to find a structural solution to Greece’s problems.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and German Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed during a call on Wednesday that a deal was “feasible” by Monday.
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Nigerian Troops Battle Boko Haram in Lake Chad Area

Posted on by SeeAF

Nigerian troops fought Boko Haram in the Lake Chad area on Saturday, killing 13 of the Islamic extremists and arresting 10 others, including 6 women believed to have helped smuggle supplies to the insurgents, said an army spokesman.

 

Soldiers of the of 8 Task Force Battalion spent 72 hours clearing the location where the Boko Haram fighters were hiding, said battalion spokesman Col. Timothy Antigha. Many other Boko Haram fighters were wounded by gunfire, he said.

 

The troops, operating in the Chikun Gudu, Tumbuma Karami and Tumbuma Baba areas recovered three AK 47 rifles and one pump-action rifle, assorted rifle magazines and 306 rounds of ammunition, a tool box, a freezer and a Toyota truck, he said.

 

In a related development, army troops, acting on a tip off, rounded up 10 suspected Boko Haram smugglers, he said. The suspects, six females and four males, are being investigated to determine the extent of their involvement with Boko Haram, he said.

 

Since the army regained control of most of the Sambisa Forest area in northeastern Nigeria from Boko Haram in December 2016, Nigerian troops have pursued the extremist fighters in areas where they have fled.

 

Boko Haram’s violent campaign to seize Nigerian territory to enforce strict Islamic Shariah rule is responsible for the deaths of thousands and has displaced about 3 million people, mostly women and children, since 2009. Thousands have been kidnapped by Boko Haram, including nearly 300 schoolgirls in Chibok in 2015.

 

Joyous scenes occurred in the capital, Abuja, Saturday when 82 newly freed Chibok schoolgirls were reunited with their families. Nigeria’s government negotiated with Boko Haram, with help from Swiss officials and the International Committee of the Red Cross, to secure the freedom of the young women from Chibok in return for the release of five extremist commanders.

 
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WHO Optimistic on Controlling DRC Ebola Outbreak

Posted on by SeeAF

The World Health Organization’s regional chief for Africa reports prospects for rapidly controlling the spread of the deadly Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo are good.

While not underestimating the difficulties that lie ahead in bringing this latest outbreak of Ebola to an end, Matshidiso Moeti told VOA she is “very encouraged” by the speed with which the government and its national and international partners have responded to this crisis.

“I am quite optimistic because this is a government that is experienced at this, and which has got off to a very quick start and we are already on the ground with the partners.  

“We are getting logistic support from WFP (World Food Program) and from the U.N. mission.  So, I am quite optimistic,” Moeti said.

WHO has reported 29 suspected cases, including three deaths since Ebola was discovered in a remote region of DRC on April 22.   This deadly virus causes fever, bleeding, vomiting and diarrhea.  It spreads easily through bodily fluids and can kill more than 50 percent of its victims.

This is the eighth recorded outbreak of Ebola in DRC since 1976.  The outbreak was first detected in Bas-Uele Province, a densely-forested area in northeastern Congo near the border with the Central African Republic.

Outbreak isolated

Moeti calls the remoteness of the area “a mixed blessing.”

She said that there was little likelihood of a “rapid expansion of the outbreak to other localities due to population movement as happened in West Africa.  Although, we are keeping a close eye on the Central African Republic … where we are concerned that there is insecurity there.”

She said it was difficult to operate and carry out surveillance or investigations in this area because the road network leading there was not very well developed and “we have to drive long distances, not in a car, but have to use a motorbike.”

To remedy this, she said the government had fixed up a landing strip to enable helicopters to fly in the experts and material needed to deal with this crisis.

Moeti, a South African physician, replaced Luis Gomez Sambo of Angola as WHO regional head for Africa in January 2015 after he was criticized for his lackluster leadership in handling the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa.  

The World Health Organization has come under scathing criticism by the international community for its slow and inept response to that unprecedented epidemic.  By the time WHO declared the Ebola epidemic at an end in January 2016, the deadly virus had killed 11,315 people in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea.

Experience put to use

During a recent visit to Kinshasa, Matshidiso Moeti said she saw how the hard lessons that have been learned from this tragic experience were being applied in DRC.

“What I observed was that the government itself was very quick in getting out to this remote area from the central level.  

“So, they sent a team from Kinshasa within a day or two of getting this alert to go and investigate and from the provincial level very rapidly, the government got down into this local area,” she said.

Moeti is leading a reform process to transform the WHO in the African Region into what she called a “more responsive, accountable, effective and transparent organization.”

She told VOA that this process was a component of WHO’s global reform effort and she would be rolling out the plan during a side-event on May 22, the opening day of this year’s World Health Assembly.

She said the reform program focused largely on how to improve measures for more quickly and efficiently tackling emergencies and communicable diseases.

“Clearly, as we saw very starkly with the Ebola outbreak, an outbreak can quickly transform into a big humanitarian crisis with all sorts of impacts.”

While the job of health reform is far from complete, Moeti said, “I am really pleased to say that we are starting to see how those changes that we have made are making a difference in how we operate.”

 

 
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American Civic Groups Take on Polarization

Posted on by SeeUS

In the United States, the 2016 presidential election revealed deep societal divisions that threaten the nation’s future. Several nonprofit groups have targeted this problem. As VOA’s Greg Flakus reports from Washington, one of these new efforts involves people from different backgrounds and ideological positions working together on projects that benefit the needy.
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Russian Ship Brings Medical Care to Isolated People

Posted on by SeeEU

Recent studies suggest that as many as 400 million people around the world do not have access to basic health care. In some cases it’s because of conflict, but in some cases it’s just geography: humans live in some very far away places, Siberia for instance. That’s where the medical ship comes in handy. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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Centerpiece of Trump’s Second Day in Saudi Arabia: Address to 50 Leaders

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President Donald Trump’s second day in Saudi Arabia is filled with individual meetings with several leaders from the region and participate in a roundtable with the Gulf Cooperation Council. 

At his first meeting, with King Hamad Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain, the president said there had been problems with the relationship between the two countries under previous U.S. administrations. There “has been a little strain but there won’t be strain with this administration,” Trump said.

He next met with the Emir of Qatar Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani.

With Trump were Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Senior White House Adviser Jared Kushner, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and Deputy National Security Adviser Dina Powell were among those present.

But the centerpiece of the day, if not the visit, will be his address to leaders of 50 Muslim-majority countries.

In that speech, he will urge them to “drive out the terrorists from your places of worship” and it as a “battle between good and evil,” according to a draft of the speech obtained by the Associated Press.

Arms deals signed

On Saturday, Trump and his host, Saudi Arabian King Salman bin Abdulaziz, signed a nearly $110 billion agreement to bolster the military capabilities of Saudi Arabia.

The defense deal, effective immediately, was one of a series agreements the two countries signed to enhance their military and economic partnerships, including a second defense pact with options valued at up to $350 billion over the next 10 years.

“It was a tremendous day,” Trump said while meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Nayef at a Riyadh hotel. “Jobs, jobs, jobs,” the president said in a reference to the potential job creation opportunities the agreements provide.

The White House said in a statement earlier that the defense deals would create new opportunities for U.S. companies in the Middle East and support “tens of thousands” of new jobs in the U.S. defense industry.

The White House statement also said the deals would help the countries more effectively address common threats.

“This package of defense equipment and services supports the long-term security of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region in the face of Iranian threats, while also bolstering the kingdom’s ability to contribute to counterterrorism operations across the region, reducing the burden on the U.S. military to conduct those operations,” the statement said.

Included in the defense agreements is a $6 billion pledge to assemble 150 Lockheed Martin Black Hawk helicopters in Saudi Arabia, which is expected to result in the creation of 450 jobs in Saudi Arabia.

The military package also includes combat ships, tanks, missile defense systems and cybersecurity technology.

Additionally, American conglomerate General Electric said Saturday that it had signed $15 billion in agreements with Saudi organizations. Saudi Aramco said it expected to sign $50 million in deals with U.S. companies in an attempt to diversify the kingdom’s economy beyond oil exports.

Trump receives kingdom’s highest honor

Earlier Saturday, King Salman presented Trump with the kingdom’s highest civilian honor during a meeting at the Royal Court in the Saudi capital, Riyadh.

The two leaders also signed a vision statement vowing to work closely to combat terrorism as Trump’s wife, Melania, daughter Ivanka, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, chief strategist Steve Bannon and Trump adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner looked on.

After Trump and the others entered the court to the music of bagpipes, King Salman decorated him with the gold King Abdulaziz al-Saud Medal.

The trip began with King Salman greeting the Trumps at the airport. They walked along a red carpet into the Royal Hall, a terminal at the airport, where they talked briefly. Minutes later, the Trumps and the Saudi king left the airport in a motorcade, heading to the city along a route with deserted streets.

 
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Fans Grateful for One Last Time at the ‘Greatest Show on Earth’

Posted on by SeeUS

Lions, tigers and clowns, no more. Oh my. It’s curtains for the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

This weekend is the last chance for fans to see death-defying acrobats, exotic animals and flashy costumes as the circus ends its 146-year reign as one of the world’s biggest big tops.

Ringling’s parent company, Feld Entertainment, announced in January that it would take its final bow this year. On Saturday afternoon, under cloudy skies, fans streamed into the Nassau Coliseum in suburban New York to pay their last respects to the iconic show.

‘An adult today’

“I’m becoming an adult today,” said 46-year-old Heather Greenberg, of New York City. “I can’t go to the circus with my daddy anymore.”

Greenberg and her parents, and her three children, along with her sister and extended family — 12 in all — clowned around, laughing and joking, as they walked into the show.

Her sister, Dawn Mirowitz, 42, of Dix Hills, New York, sobered as she pondered a future without the Ringling Brothers circus.

“We’ll never get a chance to take our grandchildren to the circus,” she said.

Higher costs, smaller crowds

Feld executives say declining attendance and high operating costs are among reasons for closing.

Ringling had two touring circuses this season, one ending its run earlier this month in Providence, Rhode Island.

The final shows of what was long promoted as “The Greatest Show on Earth” are being staged at the Nassau Coliseum in suburban New York. There are three scheduled shows Saturday and three Sunday. For those who can’t make it, the final circus show Sunday night will be streamed live on Facebook Live and on the circus’ website.

One last show

Clarissa Williams, a 38-year-old stay-at-home mom from West Hempstead, New York, was taking her 8-year-old daughter, Nylah, to the show.

“I’m thankful we get to see it before it leaves,” she said. “I pray that when they end, they take the animals and put them in a safe, sacred place.”

A spokesman for the circus says homes have been found for the animals that were owned by Ringling, including the tigers, horses and camels.
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Once Wary of Trump, Montana GOP Candidate is All In

Posted on by SeeUS

When Donald Trump visited Montana last year ahead of the state’s Republican presidential primary, technology entrepreneur Greg Gianforte was running on the GOP ticket for governor and made it a point to avoid his party’s likely presidential nominee. Gianforte later reluctantly pledged support for Trump, but tried to distance himself from him during an unsuccessful campaign to unseat the state’s Democratic governor.

Now, the multimillionaire technology entrepreneur is trying to win an open seat in Congress and has gone all in on Trump.

Gianforte has co-opted the president’s “drain the swamp” catchphrase, pledged to advance Trump’s agenda and brought in Vice President Mike Pence and Donald Trump Jr. for campaign rallies ahead of Thursday’s special election against Democrat Rob Quist. They’re vying to replace Rep. Ryan Zinke, who became Trump’s Interior Secretary in March.

Gianforte’s shift from a hesitant backer of the reality show star’s presidential bid to a candidate whose success or failure largely hinges on the president mirrors that of the Republican Party.

Gradual embrace of Trump

“In the fall, it was just surviving the next 100 days and then he’ll never be heard from again,” GOP strategist Liam Donovan said of his party’s gradual embrace of Trump. “Now, whatever Republicans felt about this guy before, he’s a winner.”

 

In an interview Wednesday, Gianforte said he isn’t second-guessing his alliance with the president.

 

“I will always be on Montana’s side and much more closely aligned with this administration than with (Democratic House Minority Leader) Nancy Pelosi,” he said.

 

That could be risky for Gianforte and other Republicans who try to play the Trump card and then find themselves caught up in turmoil the president generates, like recent allegations that he divulged classified information to Russian diplomats and urged the FBI’s director to drop an investigation into a former aide before firing him.

 

Trump voters key

Trump’s intense and loyal supporters may not flinch at the reports, said University of Montana political scientist Rob Saldin.

 

However, Gianforte’s success may depend on how many of the Montana voters who gave Trump a 20 percentage point win over Hillary Clinton in Montana are in that loyalist bloc.

 

“There’s a bit of a playing-with-fire element to this,” Saldin said. “I think Gianforte and many Republicans recognize that, but it’s a trade-off that at least for right now they’re willing to accept.”

 

Jake Eaton, a Montana Republican political consultant, said he recognizes the risk but said Gianforte is embracing Trump’s message, not the person.

 

“I think that a lot of people across the political spectrum, regardless of what they think of the president as a person, are responding to what he’s trying to do,” Eaton said. “You know, not just uphold the status quo, but shake things up. I think that’s a message that resonates with Montanans.”

Fine line on health care

 

Gianforte’s campaign had to walk a fine line when the House passed the Trump-backed American Health Care Act earlier this month. He was criticized for telling donors in a private call that he’s “thankful” that the process to repeal and replace former President Barack Obama’s health overhaul is underway, but made public a statement saying he would not have voted for the bill because he would have wanted more time to study it.

 

The health care bill is the clearest sign of how Gianforte’s allegiance with Trump runs counter to the interests of Montana voters, said state Democratic Party Executive Director Nancy Keenan.

 

“I think that they don’t want somebody else in Congress who’s just going to be a rubber stamp, especially on issues like health care,” she said.

Once-reluctant supporter

Five months ago, when Gianforte lost to incumbent Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock, he tried to keep Trump from becoming an issue in his own campaign.

 

Before the Republican primary, Gianforte declined to attend Trump’s one rally in Montana, and did not mention Trump’s name in a statement welcoming the candidate to Montana.

 

Even after Trump won the GOP nomination, Gianforte was a reluctant supporter. He said in November that Trump said “obnoxious” things, but that he was backing him because he wanted Trump to pick the next U.S. Supreme Court nominee.

 

Then Election Day came, and more than 43,000 people who voted for Trump did not vote for Gianforte for governor, making him the only Republican running for a statewide election to lose that day.

 

“At that time, it appeared that Trump was a ticking time bomb and threatened to tear down anyone who was associated with him,” Saldin said. “I think what is different now is that Gianforte looked at that race from the fall and concluded that the reason he didn’t win, the reason he’s not governor now, is there are a lot of people who voted for Donald Trump and voted for (former congressman) Ryan Zinke, but didn’t vote for Greg Gianforte.”

 

Trump in January chose Zinke to be secretary of the Interior, opening up Montana’s statewide congressional seat, and Gianforte jumped in. His Democratic opponent, Quist, is a singer, guitarist and award-winning songwriter.

Now Gianforte is an ebullient booster of the president.

“I’m running because you need a strong voice back in Washington,” he told a crowd in East Helena earlier this month during an appearance with Donald Trump, Jr. “I want to help Donald Trump drain the swamp back there.”

Washington D.C.-based Republican pollster Frank Luntz said Montana voters are generally conservative but like straight-talking mavericks like Trump and have previously embraced Democrats willing to buck conventional wisdom.

 

Democrats were always going to link Trump to Gianforte anyway, Luntz argued, and it makes sense for the candidate to make the comparison on his own terms.

 

“Montana is true Trump country,” Luntz said. “I’m not surprised this guy would embrace Trump.”
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Polls: May’s Conservative Party Lead Narrows

Posted on by SeeEU

British Prime Minister Theresa May’s lead in the opinion polls has narrowed after her Conservatives and the Labour opposition published their policy plans this week, with one survey showing the gap between the two parties halving to nine points.

May had been on course for a landslide with a majority of up to 150 seats, opinion polls had indicated in the early stages of campaigning ahead of the June 8 national vote.

Four polls Saturday however showed the Conservatives with an expected vote share of between 44 and 46 percent, still easily ahead of the Labour Party at 33 to 35 percent, but pointing to a smaller projected majority of about 40 seats.

A YouGov poll showed her lead had halved to 9 points in a week.

On Thursday May launched pledges for the government to adopt a more interventionist stance in an attempt to attract traditional Labour supporters.

She also set out plans to transfer a greater share of the cost of caring for elderly people from taxpayers to those who can afford to pay for their own care, including property owners who are the basis of support for her party, and to restrict a currently universal winter fuel payment for older people.

YouGov found that 40 percent of the public opposed the policy changes for the elderly, while 35 percent were supportive, the Sunday Times said.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the Conservative’s policies would set the young against the old in a “war between generations”.

He claimed pensioners will be 330 pounds ($430) a year worse off under the plans set out in the Tory manifesto. His party’s policies promised to renationalize mail, rail and water services, increase taxes on the highest earners and clamp down on corporate excess.

May attempted to turn the focus of her campaign back on the Labour leader on Saturday. 

“The cold hard fact is that if I lose just six seats I will lose this election, and Jeremy Corbyn will be sitting down to negotiate with the presidents, prime ministers and chancellors of Europe,” she said in a Facebook post.

She set out her plans for the economy as Britain enters thorny two-year divorce negotiations with the 27 other members of the European Union, and has called an election purportedly to strengthen her hand in those talks.
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Tunisian Protesters Want Jobs, Shut Down Oil Facility

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Tunisian protesters shut an oil pumping station that feeds a coastal terminal Saturday after a standoff with troops, escalating a weeks-long protest for jobs in their marginalized southern region.

Tunisia is a small oil producer with around 44,000 barrels per day nationwide. But weeks of protests in southern provinces have forced two foreign oil and gas companies to stop production or close fields and another removed staff as a precaution.

Army protection

The army has been protecting energy facilities in south Tataouine province. But after troops fired in the air to disperse a crowd, an agreement was reached to allow a local engineer to close the Vana pumping station to avoid any clashes, state radio and two witness said.

“After the army intervened by firing twice in the air, the young protesters got in and with the help of a local engineer were able to close the station,” witness Jamel Daifallah said by telephone.

State-run Tatatouine radio also reported the pumping station had been closed. No injuries were reported after the army fired in the air or during the shutdown of the station.

The army did not immediately respond to calls for comment.

Six years since Arab Spring

Six years after its uprising ended Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali’s autocratic rule as part of the Arab Spring revolts, Tunisia still struggles to address demands for jobs and economic opportunities in marginalized regions such as Tatatouine.

Around 1,000 protesters have been camped out for weeks in the Sahara in a region where Italy’s ENI and Austria’s OMV have operations. But government offers of jobs and development have so far failed to end the standoff.

Pictures posted earlier Saturday on a Facebook account of the Tatatouine movement showed dozens of young men at a metal fence near the Vana station and a small group of troops lining up to protect it.

ENI has said the southern protests have not affected its production. But OMV has removed 700 nonessential staff and contractors as a precaution. Perenco already halted production at its Targa and Baguel fields, while Canada-based Serinus Energy closed its Chouech Essaida field.

Unrest over jobs

Social unrest over jobs is common in Tunisia, where many in southern and central regions feel they have missed out on the economic benefits of their democratic transition compared to the northern coastal areas, which benefited more from tourism.

But the protests in Tatatouine are especially challenging for Prime Minister Youssef Chahed as he seeks to implement austerity reforms demanded by the IMF and other multilateral lenders keen for Tunisia to rationalize public spending.

 
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More Than 2,000 Migrants Rescued Overnight

Posted on by SeeEU

Rescuers pulled 2,121 migrants to safety from boats in the Mediterranean late Friday and early Saturday and recovered one dead body, the Italian coast guard said.

More than 45,000 people have reached Italy by boat from North Africa this year, up more than 40 percent from the same period in 2016, and 1,222 people are known to have died on the crossing, according to the International Organization for Migration.

The rescue operations involved two ships operated by the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) Sea Eye and Jugend Rettet, and a Spanish vessel participating in the EU’s EUNAVFOR mission in the Mediterranean, the coast guard said.

The coastguard did not give any details about the migrants. 

Most sea-borne migrants arriving in Italy are from Sub-Saharan Africa or Bangladesh and pay Libya-based smugglers to organize their passage.
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